The Tchambuli View of Persons: A Critique of Individualism in the Works of Mead and Chodorow

In Sex and Temperament and Male and Female, Margaret Mead demonstrated that significant differences exist in the dispositions of males and females in particular cultures. In her unpublished field notes she also provided a partial explanation of why such differences should exist. In this paper I evaluate her explanation of the basis of gender differences in the particular culture of the Tchambuli, and place it within the context of more recent social psychology, particularly Nancy Chodorow's psychoanalytic study of female personality. Prompted by the recent reconsideration of Mead's work — a reconsideration I believe to be as inaccurately focused on Western categories of understanding as Mead herself was — I argue that both Mead and Chodorow fail to consider adequately non‐Western views of the self in explaining gender differences. DEBORAH GEWERTZ is Associate Professor, Amherst College, and Research Fellow. Department of Anthropology. P.O. Box 4. Australian National University. Canberra ACT 2600. Australia.